Abstract:

[Abstract] Objective To study the diagnostic value of Sox2 mRNA transcription level in bronchoscopic biopsy specimens from lung cancer patients. Methods The expression of Sox2 mRNA was detected using RT-PCR from 100 hu? man lung cancer biopsy and 18 non-cancer lung biopsy through bronchoscopy. The expression of Sox2 protein was examined by immunohistochemistry from 50 cases of lung cancer biopsy, 32 cases of benign lung lesions and 18 cases of pericarcino? matous normal lung tissues. Then the relationships between Sox2 mRNA transcription level and lung cancer clinical patho? logical parameters were analyzed to test the diagnostic value of Sox2 transcription level. Results The transcription of Sox2 mRNA and its protein expression level were significantly higher in lung cancer than that in benign pulmonary disease tissues （P＜0.05） . The transcription of Sox2 mRNA was not correlated with age, gender, histology, lymph node metastasis, TNM stage and differentiation of lung cancer patients (P＞0.05). The Sox2 mRNA yielded an area of 0.748 under the ROC curve with the sensitivity of 85.0% and the specificity of 61.1%, taking the cut-off value of 0.513. Conclusion The Sox2 mRNA might be a useful diagnostic marker for lung cancer.

Key words: lung cancer, Sox2, stem cells marker, diagnostic marker, bronchoscope